A first-of-its-kind telehealth initiative that aims to reach more than 75,000 patients in its first three years has begun in Europe.
The ACT@Scale programme involves Philips and a consortium of European healthcare regions, companies, universities and hospitals.
Its aim is to support the tens of thousands of people living with chronic conditions in the region and will collect and analyse health outcome and economic impact data from large populations of the elderly and chronic disease patients.
In doing so the programme’s partners will develop, test and consolidate ‘best practice’ care coordination and telehealth programmes that they hope will be replicable and successfully rolled out across the European Union.
The work is part of the European Commission’s European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing initiative, which aims to increase the average healthy lifespan by two years by 2020.
Jeroen Tas, CEO Connected Care and Health Informatics at Philips, said “Today, 70% of Europe’s healthcare budget is spent on patients living with chronic conditions, largely a result of Europe’s ageing population and rapidly changing care needs.
“Philips is committed to helping care providers and governments implement innovative, connected care delivery models that help improve patient self-management and care collaboration. The ACT@Scale programme will provide the evidence needed to successfully deliver a seamless patient experience with better outcomes at lower cost.”
The five healthcare regions taking part in ACT@Scale will share an agreed and standardised data set, including programme outcomes such as the number of patients included, (re)hospitalisations, duration of hospitalisations and mortality rates.
They will also assess economic impact factors such as cost per patient and the impact on hospitals income models.
The regions involved are:
- Catalonia in Spain, which has developed programmes to support nursing homes, reduce hospital re-admissions, manage complex cases and promote physical activity
- Southern Denmark, which is rolling out a telehealth programme to deliver psychiatric treatment
- Northern Ireland in the UK, which has remote telemonitoring programmes to support COPD and diabetes patients, and manage maternal obesity
- The Northern Netherlands, with programs to provide specialist support for COPD, asthma and heart failure patients, and connect healthcare and community services for chronic disease patients
- The Basque Country in Spain, which is rolling out programmes to support older people with complex health and social care needs, plus telehealth services for chronic heart failure patients.
ACT@Scale builds on the ACT programme, a two-and-a-half year study of European integrated care programmes that was completed earlier this year, and its first findings will be available at the end of 2016.
